Girl with Penguins
by ariel2me
Summary: Shireen Baratheon and penguins.
1. Chapter 1

**Girl with Penguins**

"Look, Daddy, it's like I'm holding his hand. But penguins don't __really__ have hands, of course. Right, Mommy?"

Selyse nods.

The penguins look like they are marching in step with Shireen. "Where are you taking them?" Stannis asks.

"To penguin kindergarten," Shireen declares. "They don't like to take naps, though. They close their eyes and close their eyes, but they can't sleep because it's not night and they're not in their own beds and their mommy and daddy haven't kissed them goodnight and can we do something else now please?"

"Well, next year when you go to a real school, there won't be nap times anymore," Selyse says. "You might miss it."

"No, I won't," Shireen says, shaking her head vigorously.

Stannis studies the picture. When Shireen is smiling like this, you could almost fool yourself into thinking that the scar running down her cheek is not really there. The man who did it had been screaming payback when he slashed Shireen's cheek. Stannis was the prosecutor who sent his daughter to prison. Life without parole, for killing her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. Unlike penguins, most people don't mate for life.

"Will Shireen blame me?"he asks Selyse, as they watch their daughter's sleeping face.

"You know she doesn't blame you."

"Not now. She's only five, too young to understand. But later, when she is old enough, perhaps -"

"She's __our__ daughter. I'm sure she will be smart enough to recognize where the blame truly lies. With that monster, with that wretched, evil man." Selyse still could not bring herself to say the name.

"Do __you__ blame me?"

"Of course not. You were only doing your job. No one blames you, Stannis. It's time you stop blaming yourself."

 _ _It's not your fault. You are not to blame.__ Everyone keeps trying to convince him of this.

But back when people thought that the slasher was someone with a grudge against Selyse, because of something she wrote in one of her articles, in her capacity as a hard-hitting, take-no-prisoner investigative journalist, the reaction had been different. __What kind of mother would put her child in that kind of danger?__ __This is yet another cautionary tale about how women can't have it all.__ And on and on it goes.

"People treat mothers and fathers differently. The expectations are very different," Selyse says.

"Even in this day and age?"

"Even in this day and age. All the things we recognize as a double standard when it comes to men and women in general … somehow that recognition is thrown out the window when the men and women in question are fathers and mothers. It's almost like mothers belong to a completely different species than women in general."

"Where is the justice in that?"

"Where indeed?"

"Will it be different, by the time our daughter is old enough to be a mother?"

"I have to believe that it will be," Selyse says, vehemently.

 _ _It is a leap of faith, having children,__ his mother had said, a long time ago. But what if you never had any faith to begin with, faith that the world will be as it should be?

 _ _You go on anyway__ , his wife would say. Because when the child is no longer an abstraction, no longer a hypothetical notion, you do not have the luxury of complete and total disillusionment. You have to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that.

* * *

 **Grumpy Baby Penguin is Grumpy**

Uncle Renly laughs. "Do you know who this looks like, Shireen?"

"Who?"

"Your father, of course."

Shireen stares at Uncle Renly's phone. "That's a baby penguin."

"A grumpy baby penguin."

"It doesn't look like Daddy at all."

Uncle Renly touches the screen a few times, and then a slide show starts. A slide show with lots and lots of photos of Daddy. But Daddy has the same expression in all of them, with the upside down smile. "No, Daddy, you have to smile the other way around," Shireen would always say, when Daddy smiles like that.

"Do you see the resemblance now?" Uncle Renly asks, when the slide show is done.

Shireen shakes her head. "Nope."

"Not even a little bit?"

"No."

"Not even a teensy tiny little bit?"

"Weeeell, maaaaaaybe a little bit," Shireen admits.

"He's cute though, isn't he, the grumpy baby penguin?"

" _ _Very__ cute," Shireen replies.

"Your father looks cute too, sometimes, when he's grumpy."

"I don't think Daddy will like it if you call him cute, Uncle Renly."

"Well then, we won't tell him. It will be our little secret," Uncle Renly whispers.

* * *

 **Valentine Penguins**

"Have you seen this, Mom?"

It still feels strange, this ' _ _Mom__ ' and ' _ _Dad__ ' business. "Mommy and Daddy are for little girls," Shireen had declared, the day after her seventh birthday. "I'm a big girl now."

"What's next, Father and Mother when she turns eight?" Stannis had grumbled.

"Didn't __you__ call your parents Father and Mother?" Selyse had pointed out.

But he was a very different kind of kid. As was Selyse herself. Where does it come from, their daughter's sweetness? Certainly not from her parents.

"These penguins have been together for twenty two years. Twenty two!" Shireen exclaims.

Valentine's dinner for penguins. With chocolates and heart-shaped balloons and candles and red-and-white checkered tablecloth. How absurd. But one look at her daughter's rapturous expression tells Selyse that scoffing is absolutely the wrong response here.

"I'm sure they enjoyed their dinner very much," she says instead. Well, at least those penguins were served plain fresh fish, and not some ridiculous overpriced restaurant concoction drenched with truffle oil and god knows what else.

"Do you and Dad have something planned for Valentine's Day?"

"Not really, no."

 _ _We don't do Valentine's Day,__ Stannis would scoff. __A commercialized made-up holiday__ , Selyse would scoff alongside him.

 _ _You celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day__ , her cousin Delena pointed out, more than once.

 _ _That's different. That's for Shireen, not for us.__

"Myrcella said her parents never celebrated Valentine's Day either," Shireen says, staring at her hands, not looking at her mother.

 _ _Oh.__ Selyse gets it, finally.

"Your father and I are not getting a divorce."

Shireen still would not look at her mother.

"We're not … well, we're not like your Uncle Robert and Aunt Cersei," Selyse continues.

"Uncle Robert and Aunt Cersei never went anywhere together for Valentine's Day," Shireen says, finally looking up, staring at her mother earnestly.

"That's not why they're getting a divorce."

"I know. I know it's not the reason. But it's a … a symptom, Myrcella said. It's a symptom that there's something wrong with their marriage."

"Every marriage is different, just like every child is different."

Shireen frowns, considering that. "Joffrey is very different from Myrcella, even though they are brother and sister." Leaning closer to her mother, Shireen whispers, "He's so mean to Tommen." Then, smiling shyly, she says, "If I have brothers and sisters, I would never be that mean to them. I will be a good big sister, I promise."

* * *

 **Penguin in Penguin Sweater**

"The sweaters keep the penguins warm until they are well enough to be cleaned," Shireen says.

"And it stops them from nibbling oil off their feathers and poisoning themselves," Arya adds. "The oil company doesn't care, of course," she says, feet kicking the front legs of the chair she is sitting on. "They don't care that their oil spills are destroying so many lives."

"We have ten volunteers so far," Shireen continues.

"Where do you get the yarn? Do you buy them?" Devan asks.

"Oh no, we don't buy them. We reuse wool from old sweaters that people donate," Shireen replies. "They're not old sweaters, really," she amends. "Most of them are Christmas gifts that people never got around to wearing. We need volunteers to unravel the donated sweaters and to knit the sweaters for the penguins."

"Shireen does the design, she's very good at that. And she does the knitting and unraveling too, of course, alongside the other volunteers. I'm in charge of logistics – collecting the old sweaters, sending the finished penguin sweaters, making sure we have all the necessary equipment and material and so on," Arya says. "And if you think you're going to be in charge of logistics just because you're a boy, then think again," she warns Devan.

"I can unravel. And knit too," Devan says. "My mother has a store on Etsy. I help her with some of the orders sometimes."

"Does she sell sweaters?" Shiren asks.

"No, she makes dolls for characters from movies and tv shows," Devan replies.

"Like what?" Arya and Shireen asks, in unison.

"Characters from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are very popular," Devan says. He looks through the designs for the penguin sweaters, his solemn face breaking into the sunniest smile. "Penguin on penguin. How perfect."

"That's my favorite too," Shireen says.


	2. Chapter 2

**Snow Penguin**

A Christmas tree inside the house was inevitable, for his daughter's sake, but Stannis drew the line at cluttering his lawn and front yard with Christmas-related figurines and ornaments. Santa Claus, elves, Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer and their ilks, they were all banned as decorations. Banned!

His front yard was white, completely white and _pristine_ , enveloped by snow. His neighbors' yards, on the other hand, were eyesores, providing more than ample cause for teeth-grinding and jaw-clenching. The Seaworth's yard was the worst, with seven wooden elves in descending sizes arranged in a row (a _crooked_ row, at that), one for each of the Seaworth sons. The eldest of those sons was already a married man in his mid-twenties, but _still_ Davos persisted in putting out an elf for him, as if Dale Seaworth was still a little boy who believed in elves and Santa and all that nonsense.

His daughter did not seem to take as much delight as Stannis in the pristineness of their front yard. "We could build a snow penguin," Shireen suggested. "It's not Christmas-related, so you won't hate it, but it will still make our house look more festive from the outside."

"A snow penguin? Don't you mean a snowman?"

Shireen stared at her father with reproach in her eyes. "If I meant a snowman, I would have said a snowman, Dad. You taught me to be precise with my words."

"How exactly do you build a snow penguin?"

"It's not all that different from building a snowman. Come on, I'll show you," Shireen said, pulling her father's hand, trying to lead him from their front door to the yard.

Stannis resisted. "Why do we need any decoration in the yard in the first place? The house looks festive enough inside. That is all that matters."

Incredibly, his daughter was suddenly near tears. "We've never built anything together. Mr. Seaworth made those elves in his front yard with his sons. Devan told me so. They are not all the same. Each one is different, made special for each of his boys."

So they were not store-bought ornaments - yet another example of the over-commercialization of Christmas - as Stannis had assumed. Davos Seaworth, a man of many talents. Stannis turned to his daughter and said, with some regret, "I can't carve you a wooden penguin. Woodworking is not one of my skills."

Shireen sighed. "I don't _want_ a wooden penguin. I want us to make a snow penguin, _together._ "

This time, Stannis allowed himself to be led to the yard. "Well, you're the teacher. How should we start?"

"First," Shireen said, "you have to check if the snow is in the right condition."

"What would be the _wrong_ condition?"

"If the snow is too icy, or too slushy, then that is the wrong condition. You must check if the snow is firm enough to be rolled into a ball, and firm enough to stay in that shape."

Stannis nodded. Shireen waited. Nothing happened. They stared at each other in silence, father and daughter.

"What are you waiting for, Dad?" Shireen finally broke the silence.

" _I_ have to do the checking?"

"Yes!"

"You said you want _us_ to build the snow penguin _together,_ " Stannis reminded his daughter.

"But we're not _building_ it yet. This is just the _checking_ phase, to see if the snow is in the right condition," Shireen pointed out. "If the condition is not right, we can't build the snow penguin at all."

"Now who's being pedantic?" grumbled Stannis.

"I learned it from my father," Shireen replied, with a grin.

"Hah!" exclaimed Stannis. He gathered snow and rolled it into a ball. "It _looks_ firm enough," he said. "But it needs one final test."

"What test?" Shireen asked. The snowball hit her arm before the question was fully out of her mouth. Laughing, Shireen declared, "It needs to be tested one more time," and threw an ever bigger snowball at her father.

They did manage to finish building the snow penguin, finally. Stannis even relented and agreed to have the penguin wearing a red-and-green scarf emblazoned with the words _"Merry Christmas"_ around its throat. But he drew the line at antlers. "Absolutely not!" he laid down the law. "It's a snow penguin, not Santa's reindeer."


	3. Chapter 3

**Penguin Cupcakes**

* * *

"What's ready-to-roll icing? Is that like frosting?" Shireen asked, studying the list of ingredients.

"No, it's not. It's fondant, actually," replied Selyse.

"Ohhhh … fondant, I know what that is. I saw it on Cake Boss."

Selyse raised her eyebrows. Cake Boss? What kind of shows had Stannis been letting their daughter watch while Selyse was away researching a story for her magazine? "Why were you watching Cake Boss?"

"Dad was watching it, and I thought it looked fun."

 _Stannis?_ Stannis was watching a show about cakes? It didn't seem possible, and yet, Shireen would never lie about it.

Shireen noticed her mother's raised eyebrows and exclaimed, "I know! I didn't believe it too, at first. Dad said he was watching it for the _'family dynamics'_ buuuut –"

"But we both know he actually means family drama."

Shireen laughed. "Exactly!"

Selyse did not remember any bickering brothers on Cake Boss. The star of the show has four sisters, she recalled, and no brother at all. Although, Buddy the Cake Boss sometimes bickered with his two brothers-in-law who also worked at the bakery, so perhaps that was the attraction of the show for Stannis.

"Dad said the cakes were just background noise to him, but … I don't know … he seemed _very_ interested when they were making a dragon cake for a fantasy convention. Dad even said he could do it better, that he could have made a more realistic dragon cake."

"What else did your father say?"

"He said no self-respecting grown man should allow himself to be called Buddy. It would be like if Dad introduced himself to people as Stanny, which he would never ever do, of course. I told him that's really, really _mean_ , Dad. It's not Mr. Valastro's fault his parents named him Buddy."

"His real name is Bartolo," said Selyse. "Buddy is a nickname."

Shireen stared at her mother in amazement. "So you watch Cake Boss too!"

Selyse cleared her throat. "Well, sometimes … when I'm travelling for my job, when I'm alone in a hotel room, missing you and your father, I … yes, I watch … certain shows that … that I don't normally watch at home."

Shireen laughed. "You don't have to sound so _guilty_ , Mom. We should watch Cake Boss together one night, all three of us."

Selyse nodded. "We should try to find an episode where they make a penguin-themed cake."

"It would be a huge cake though, not like the cupcakes we're making. It probably wouldn't be as cute as ours. Mom, can we add extra vanilla to the cake mix?"

"We're not using a cake mix this time."

"Why not?"

"We're going to make cupcakes from scratch."

Shireen was silent for a long while, before asking her mother, "Is this because of what your aunt Melara said when she came to visit us last time? Because she said a good mother will bake a cake from scratch for her family, not from a box?"

Selyse flushed. She looked away to avoid her daughter's gaze as she replied, "No, I just thought we should try something different this time."

All this talk about the supposed "feud" between stay-at-home moms and working moms was bullshit anyway, Selyse had retorted to Melara at the time. Many women _had_ to work outside the home, regardless of their preference, Selyse's mother among them. After her father died in a car accident when Selyse was still in elementary school, her mother worked two jobs – as a waitress at a diner and as a cashier at a grocery store – to support Selyse and her two brothers.

"That's different," Aunt Melara had countered. "Your mother had no other choice. Your father died suddenly, and he didn't leave any savings or life insurance money. Your husband makes a good living, and the kind of man that he is, I bet he has plenty of life insurance policies. You don't _have_ to work. You don't _have_ to leave your daughter at a daycare or with a sitter."

"What if my marriage fails? Or what if Stannis falls ill, couldn't work anymore, and we all lose our health insurance because I don't have a job with benefits? We're comfortable, but we're not rich like you and Uncle Alester," Selyse had said, pointedly.

Aunt Melara had shrugged that aside. "You and your gloomy predictions, Selyse. Your mother should have named you Cassandra."

Selyse's economic arguments were firmly sound, but the truth was, even if she was married to someone as rich as Uncle Alester, she still would want to be an investigative journalist. Her career was not just a source of salary and benefits. It was a vocation. It brought meaning to her life. She loved it.

 _You love it more than you love your daughter?_

 _It's a different kind of love. But where is it written that if a mother works outside the home, then she is definitely a bad mother who does not love her children? No one would ever assume that about a father. No one would ever dream of prejudging a father in that way._

Her argument was sound, no, _more_ than sound, it was impeccable. But there were still times when she struggled with the feeling of guilt.

Like feeling guilty about being away from home and missing Shireen's first soccer game of the year because she was researching a story, for example. It was a significant and time-sensitive story, about a Congressman who mouthed his support for the #MeToo movement in public, while in private, he had a predilection for sticking his hand up the skirts of his female staffers.

Or feeling guilty about baking cupcakes from a box.

Shireen took out the cupcake mix from the cabinet. "It tastes good from the box too. And you always add extra ingredients, and make the frosting yourself. Let's add extra vanilla, and some lemon juice. Can we, Mom?"

Selyse kissed her daughter. "Of course we can."

While the cupcakes were baking in the oven, they started on the frosting.

"Do you want buttercream frosting, or cream cheese frosting?" Selyse asked.

"Cream cheese!" Shireen shouted.

"We can't smother the cupcakes with too much frosting this time," Selyse said.

"Why not?" Shireen asked, looking disappointed.

"Because the fondant needs to go on top of the frosting, so we can make the penguin design. Let's make the cream cheese frosting first."

"Where's the piping bag, Mom?" asked Shireen, her voice muffled by the frosting-smeared finger she had stuck in her mouth.

"We don't have to pipe the frosting. We just have to spread it over the cupcakes. You know why?"

"Because the frosting will be covered by the fondant?"

Selyse nodded.

"They're ready for the frosting," Shireen said, after checking the cupcakes cooling on the rack.

Two different layers of fondant were required, black and white. "Can you find the cookie cutters in the drawer?"

"Which shapes?"

"The round one. And the heart-shaped one."

Shireen stared at her mother skeptically. "Heart-shaped? Are you sure, Mom? We're not making cupcakes for Valentine's Day."

"Trust me, it will work. I'll cut the black fondant, with the round cookie cutter. And you can cut the white fondant, with the heart-shaped cookie cutter."

Selyse placed the round black fondant on top of an already frosted cupcake. "Now you can put the white heart over the black fondant," she told Shireen.

"Doesn't it need some kind of glue or something?"

"Just a little water would work."

Shireen stared at the cupcake with the two layers of fondant. "Hmm. It doesn't really look like a penguin."

"We're not done yet. The penguin needs eyes, and beak, and what else?"

"Feet! Happy feet!"

The penguin's eyes were made of tiny balls of black fondant. "Let's not use black fondant for the beak and feet," Shireen suggested.

"What color do you want to use?"

"Different colors for different penguins?"

"We only have orange, pink and blue fondant left."

"Some of the penguins can have orange beaks and feet, some of them can have pink beaks and feet, and some can have blue beaks and feet."

"What about the extra decorations? Which color fondant should we use?"

"Extra decorations?"

"You don't want just a plain penguin, do you? They could wear a hat, or a scarf, or a bow."

"Or antlers," Shireen said.

"Antlers? Why antlers?"

"Remember when I convinced Dad to build a snow penguin with me before Christmas?"

Selyse nodded.

"I wanted to put antlers on the snow penguin, to make it look more festive, buuuut …"

"Let me guess, he said it's not realistic for a penguin to have antlers?"

Shireen nodded. "He said it's a snow penguin, not Santa's reindeer. Dad agreed to put a Merry Christmas scarf on the snow penguin to make up for it, even though he can't stand that red-and-green color combo usually."

"We should decorate his cupcake with a scarf that says NITPICKER."


End file.
